Tuesday, January 13, 2015

Immigration leads to terrorism?

Immigrants to the West from lands with "strange" religion, thought unlikely to ever assimilate into our culture, are unfairly defined by extremists that used terrorism against those who disagree with their philosophy.

I'm, of course, talking about the experience of Italian and Irish immigrants to the United States.

While the hashtag #JeSuisCharlie is getting a lot of play after last week's events, perhaps #JeSuisAhmed is more appropriate. Officer Merabet's example shows that the actions of a few do not negate the fact that a vast majority of immigrants assimilate quickly and well. In a couple generations our descendants will wonder what the fuss was ever about -- as we now are ashamed there ever was backlash against Italian, Irish, German, Polish, etc., immigration.